When Michael Winterbottom's film Welcome To Sarajevo was screened over a year ago in Cannes the events it depicted were still vivid – it's a pity it's taken so long to reach us in Australia. This frequently harrowing depiction of the tragic seige of the city of Sarajevo is seen from the perspective of western news correspondents, and centres on a British TV reporter, Stephen Dillane, who becomes obsessed with the inaction of western leaders and with the plight of the city's orphans.
At first the film seems chaotic as the dreadful devastation and the dangerous lives of the media people are established, but gradually a coherent story emerges – the story of one man determined to try to do something to help the victims of the carnage. Kerry Fox and Woody Harrelson are very good in subsidiary roles, but the star of the film is Winterbottom who once again demonstrates what a bold filmmaker he is as he meshes audacious wide-screen footage – shot in Sarajevo after the war – with genuine newsreel material to devastating effect. And he pulls no punches in apportioning the blame for the tragedy of Sarajevo. An extraordinary film.
